Zil 4906 - The Soyuz capsule [2]

Well it all is going better as expected, actually. Today I managed to get all of the stuff around the wall up and ready. The only things left are the hatch on top and the exposed bottom (the heat shield is jettisoned in the descent, remember?)
Here's a pic on how it looks now, the rest follows below.

Zil 4906 [14] - Small stuff part one

We're almost there.
It now is down to the small stuff. Rear view mirrors, propellers, and hinges. The latter still is ahead of me, the rest is well under way. 

Zil 4906 (12) short update - Just one more wheel to go!

So there. Five down, one to go. This was this morning, after making four airplanes to kind of avoid getting any further... 

In front of the Zil are some small doodads for finishing the cabin, four finished wheels and one not even halfway through glueing the treads on, a strip of treads and trials for the upcoming Soyuz in 1/25! More on that later.

 ...And this here below was just minutes ago. Wheel five is ready. 

Now just one last wheel, the one on the rear on the right side, and then it's time for the suspension. It looks like there almost isn't any progress but with my job and all thins in my life beyond paper models it sometimes takes a lot more time to do just one wheel. And just doing a wheel over and over again gets tedious in the long run. Hence the airplanes. I guess I'll take another route for the suspension parts. Not one by one but all parts at once. Might be easier. Who knows.

See you!
--PK

Ariane 5 1/96, pt. 24 - the fairing [3]

Getting quite busy on the rocket shelf.

Well, that was something, the past days. Hours of work and thinking down the drain. At least, for a great deal. The Ariane is on the shelf now, together with its peers. But I am not happy with it. Everything below the fairing looks wonderful to me. It's precise, tightly fitting and unblemished. It looks very close to perfect to me. So a fairing with very visible seams and a bad fit is not the crown on this job. And this is a bad faring ogive. The parts of Mark Cable which are taking up the top part are great, but the transition between his top and the cylindrical part of the fairing sucks. I redid it five or six times but I couldn't get the measurements just right. I finally took the one that looked the least bad and used it in the ogive. But the cone is crooked. It is not elegantly curved. Grmbl.

Grmbl.

It kept on lingering through my mind, while I was taking a walk through the park this afternoon with my girlfriend. It has to be done differently. It needs to be good looking. I haven't spent that much time on the rest of this build to leave it there with a messed-up fairing.

So I started thinking the unthinkable, at least, unthinkable for me. 

[more after the jump]

Ariane 5 1/96, pt. 18 - the EAPs [part 4]

Almost back where I left off.
The first EAP is finished again. It already has the engine back on and stands tall, awaiting its twin.

There hasn't been an engine glued to the stove pipe here on this photo but in the time between I took this photo and I wrote these lines I did attach the engine and the retro rockets on the skirt.

After the jump more pictures of the rebuild.

Falcon 9 v 1.1 (4)

Onwards and upwards we go.
Back to where we left the long pencil rocket called Falcon 9.
Lots of progress made today and yesterday. Great to have a little spare time for the hobby. What did PK do? Well, for a start he put on some clamps for keeping the second stage in place. It needs to be said that in Alfonso's original model there is no separable second stage or Dragon. So I had to cut the clamps in half. I also did all the engines and because all posts up til now had the engines as front post pic, I'll do the same here.
More, lots more! after the jump.

Time to reload

Well, it has finally been finished. The long documentary film me and my partner have been working on for two years has left our office today to go into post production treatment; sound-wise, that is.
Time for us to take a little break after two years of full throttle working on several projects at the same time. At some point there were five we had to deal with. That is a lot for a two-person business, I can tell you that.
So, it's time to get some well- deserved rest and reload. After my return we can start the editing process on a new project we've filmed in Cologne last winter. But that will be a lot easier than what we did with this last one.
At this time there aren't any paper model projects on the table, there are three started projects that I put on the shelf indefinitely and of course I also have some ideas brooding in my head.
We will see what I will come up with after my much needed break. Your guess is as good as mine!
Here's the trailer of the documentary I worked on. It's mainly in Dutch, of course. It apparently is impossible to embed it or I just am too stupid to get this right. Or both.


In short, it's about four people involved with the Groningen Conservatoire; one teacher and four students in different years.  We have followed them through one and a half year of lessons, learning processes, contests, stress, concerts, breakdowns, frustrations, but also the joy of making music. They talk about their ambitions, their fascination with music and how they developed themselves the time we've followed them.
Hopefully we will manage to get a version with English subtitles in the nearby future so we can show it abroad.

That's all for now, see you soon!

Saturnial Prelude [5]

Time is precious, and that's not any different with this build. There's a lot to do besides paper building and so progress is slow. But I like what I see. Since I redid the small plumbing at the side of the turbo pump manifold, I really got back into this build. This engine started out as having to end up as another version of Greelt's F-1 engine, which is, in all regards, a beaut. But after the engine bell was made, I just started freewheeling as usual. Discarding most of the parts of the paper kit, making my own and just trying to make as much detail as possible.
I have started on the big tubes around the neck of the engine. These pipes directly distribute the fuel and oxidizer to the turbo pump and the engine. The amount of fuel they needed was incredibly high so they needed to be big.
I also found out the engine went through a lot of modifications before they were used with the Saturn in the end. This version is, in a sense, becoming a bit of a Frankenstein's monster. Greelt used the rounded manifold around the engine bell, while the flown engines had a shape that more or less resembled one's back end. Also, the plumbing differs a lot between versions I have pictures of. Presuming the engine didn't change a lot after the first couple of flights, I presume the other large differences are all older versions of the engine. (if not, let me know, I really am interested in those things).
Anyway, here's some paper stuff to look at. And as usual, more after the jump.
See you!
--PK

ALT 1977 1/400 [20]

This morning, I have made the struts on the back of the SCA. The original parts that came with the 1/144 model were just a bit too small to easily cut and shape and glue and make it look good. So I scratch built the entire structure. I used rolled up pieces of paper and card board. Most of it was glued using white glue but I reinforced it with a little drop of CA.
It's not finished yet, there have to be two more T-38 Talons made before the diorama is ready to be shown.
But for now, here's the SCA's struts close up after the jump and to begin here, the assembled shuttle and SCA together.
More tomorrow, I think.

ALT 1977 1/400 [16]

And there are the wings.  Up next: finishing touches, main gear and wheel well detailing and the shuttle struts. That's for tomorrow.